It reads like a recipe for a last-place season and a “maybe next year” attitude: two coaches (one fired), two home courts, a league-enforced month off directly after a winning streak and a handful of injuries. Now stir.

Somehow, the Liberty turned all those negatives into a playoff berth and a first-round, best-of-three date with the Detroit Shock, beginning tonight at Joe Louis Arena. And they’re letting everyone know that their season of surprises isn’t over.

“After everything we’ve been through this year,” coach Pat Coyle said, “we didn’t care what anybody said. Nobody believed in us. Everybody has counted us out. Everybody. The people that count, the people in that locker room, they believe they can win.”

After a 7-9 start, Liberty execs fired Richie Adubato on July 3 and named Coyle the interim head coach, sending a sign that the losing needed to stop and adding a distinct possibility chaos would ensue. It didn’t.

Then the Liberty were booted from their Madison Square Garden home and put into Radio City Music Hall due to the Republican National Convention. The Liberty responded by going 5-1 in their second home.

And the break for the Olympics helped little in healing the injuries to Tari Phillips and Ann Wauters.

“I’m sure [everyone has counted us out],” guard Vicki Johnson said. “That’s every year with the New York Liberty. A few injuries have made people doubt. It’s fine. It just makes you work even harder.”

Said forward Crystal Robinson, “We’ve had every reason to throw in the towel. No one expected us to be here. It’s always nice to prove anybody wrong.”

The Libs won their last three games of the regular season to earn the second seed in the Eastern Conference and they couldn’t have asked for a better first round opponent than the one they face tonight.

The Liberty are 2-2 against the Shock this season and that record could have easily been 3-1 if not for a buzzer-beating three-pointer that put their Sept. 14 contest into overtime in an eventual 82-71 Detroit win. The Liberty already matched up well with the Shock, and now depleted Detroit enters the playoffs without one of the league’s top players. Swin Cash injured her left knee Sept. 11 and is out for the rest of the season.

“We used to dominate that team,” guard Becky Hammon said. “They used to be the bottom of the bucket before [Shock coach] Bill Laimbeer came in. With Swin out of the mix, that’s a big hole. Are they the Swin Cashes? No.”